Mat Honan

Apple has an event tomorrow, and it will be the Biggest Consumer Technology News of 2012. It will likely remain the Biggest Consumer Technology News of 2012 until Apple's next event, which may then overtake it. Here's what to expect.

First and foremost, it will be universally acknowledged as Very Important.

How important? Here is an anecdote: A major player in the consumer electronics industry had an event planned on Wednesday morning at the same time as Apple's announcement. It was a chance for an intimate group of technology journalists to meet with a C-level executive, and to walk away at the end of the meeting with unreleased products to review.

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Journalists love this kind of gathering because, above all else, we are dicks; the chance to hector a top executive at one of the world's largest companies for not being Apple, in an intimate setting, surrounded by your equally unimpressed peers, and then walk out the door with unreleased products to review is what we love to do.

Nonetheless, [Redacted] had to reschedule its event due to lack of interest. Too many inky hacks pulled out to cover Apple instead. We, the Press would rather sit in a dark room, unable to ask tough questions or actually touch and test an Apple product, than do our job. We would rather serve as a gateway for Apple's live action press releases.

And unless you accuse the media of being biased towards Apple products, you should have figured out by now that none of us even care. Who cares. Nobody cares. We are all so jaded and cynical that if cow shit brought in an audience, we would all be sitting in a pasture, DSLRs in hand, waiting breathlessly for the next patty to fall. Or at least, many of us would.

We cover what we cover because it's what you want us to cover. And as long as the audience comes in, we'll be there to receive you.

So tomorrow, Apple will be heaving a dead goat off a truck for the vultures of the technology press to swoop in and feast on. And oh, how we will feast: ripping the meat from the bones with our sharp-witted beaks. Page views—and more importantly, unique visitors—will come rolling in, enough to fill our bellies and sate our appetites for the month. (I shall be guilty of this, just you wait.)

Have I taken this analogy too far? No.

Once we've had our fill of Apple's blood and organs and muscle and marrow we'll shit out opinions all over the grassy fields of the Web, fertilizing its pastures with clever bon mots and biting critiques.

We'll look up with greasy chins and compare the performance of Tim Cook to Steve Jobs' most famous appearances. And if we are disappointed, or unhappy with what is announced, we will drag out Jobs' bloody toga and parade it in front of the mob. (Dibs on this too.)

Some will immediately dismiss the thing Apple rolls out as a failure. They will note Apple already reached its high water mark, and that this thing, whatever it is, is not as good as what Google or Microsoft or Sony has to offer. (Well, it's possible no one will mention Sony.) They will note the feature set on the others is much greater than that on the New Apple Thing. "The others all have four ports and it only has three!"

Everyone else will note that these people are idiots.

The I-told-you-so-ing will be overwhelming on Twitter, where everyone will look back at the tea leaf-reading that's taken place over the past several weeks and argue who was right and who was wrong. In back channels, on IM, those too chicken-shit to call people out in public will bandy about pejoratives to their braver (or more guileful) friends, encouraging them to attack those who could not accurately read the bones. And meanwhile, those who were right, even if only by a hair, will crow about their small piles of stones, and use them as evidence as to why you should come back and read them, again and again.

No matter what Apple releases, the enthusiast blogs will call It the greatest thing ever. (Dollars to Pesos says we'll be among them.) They (we) will stroke and caress its lines and note how much better it is—in both overt and subtle ways—than the last iteration. They will extol the genius of Jon Ive (love that guy) for making this corner just so and that edge just not. Some of them will actually masturbate, in a literal sense, but they won't reveal that to you because it is shameful. Together they will tear into anyone who doesn't see it their way.

Someone will offer a contrarian take. Insufferable gits will note that this thing has the sweat and blood of poorly paid workers smeared across its highly toxic components.

Your local news will have a brief and breathless summation of Apple's announcement, followed by horrible puns that will make you want to break your television. But you won't. You will wait until you can buy a new and better Apple Television.

Which may or may not be announced tomorrow, along with a new iPad.

To find out, you can follow along with me on our iPad HD Liveblog this Wednesday, starting at around noon EST. I will see you there, in unrestrained bloody glory.